


weeping willow, stop your tears

by aaronwarnerisabeautifulstorm



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, My Girl AU, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regrets, Shower of Angst, The Mood Ring™, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, side pairings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-01 22:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10202495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aaronwarnerisabeautifulstorm/pseuds/aaronwarnerisabeautifulstorm
Summary: Your first kiss goes like this.You’re sitting underneath that stupid old willow tree you can’t help but love. Beside you is Prompto, his chubby legs folded beneath him and he continues to stare at you from under his long blonde lashes, his cheeks a slight rosy red as he stutters his way through an explanation of why you can’t marry Miss Lunafreya. You are half listening to his argument, most of you is too focused on how the color expands from his face to his neck, to his ears and elbows and knees.---------The journey to recovery is not an easy one. Especially when the memories keep on haunting you (My Girl AU).





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the 90's movie My Girl starred by Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin. If you know the movie, you know you're in for heartbreak, just a warning. 
> 
> The title of this chapter was taken from the name of the movie in spanish: Mi primer beso=My first kiss.

You hold the half full, half empty glass in a fake grip; your fingers too loose around it to really be able to grasp the glass. Condensation cools your palm and the bitter taste of the drink you’ve just had-some random new drink the bartender wanted to test out and you didn’t care enough to ask for its name-burning its way down your esophagus. The sensation is punishing, painful and real. Everything you need tonight.

All around you, people laugh, people flirt, people joke, people sing, people talk about the football game last night, people celebrate. People live. You sit on your stool and grieve, wishing you were brave enough to be the opposite of what everyone is right now.

Your eyes keep returning over and over to the small calendar that is slightly visible on the wall, behind the nameless bartender’s figure. It’s a raw experience, seeing the exact date on the calendar, imagining a red circle marked around the day (today) the way it is marked on your own calendar back at home and it comes as no surprise when the previous fake grip turns real and the next thing you know is that the glass is pressed to your lips, your mouth is full of acid liquid that slides directly to your soul and both soothes and worsens your mood. You almost choke due to how fast you’re gulping the contents of the glass down ~~(you wish you had)~~.

Feeling miserable, worthless, stupid, every pejorative word you can think of, you ask for a refill.

The bar is filled with lyrics flowing from the speakers, a popular song from one of those car racing movies you never bothered to watch. Still, you recognize the melody and the words spoken; recognize the feeling tied to them. You take a drink and think along to the song: _Yes, indeed, it has been a very long day._

_When will it be over?_

Then your phone buzzes off inside your right pocket, as if reading your depressing thoughts. You sigh, deliberate for centuries whether you really want to check or not because you know that if you do it will never end. In the background that new singer’s voice says things about brotherhood and bonds that will never be broken, in answer to that your brain throbs intensely, your tongue feels like sandpaper, and your eyes feel droopy, heavy, ready to close for the night (maybe forever).

The fine layer of sweat on your skin, the shirt you put on this morning that now sticks to your chest uncomfortably, the scratchy material of your jeans, the first signs of a headache and the torturous squeezing of your heart. Everything in this bar, at this hour, in this place or maybe even everything that has happened today has made it impossible to forget about it. **_It_** being the vibrant red number circling around every idea, every action, every thought of yours….

Maybe you’re not drunk enough.

The phone is between your fingers now (you can’t remember when you decided to pull it out during that internal debate) and the screen is lit with what seem to be thousands of notifications. 40 missed calls from Dad, 50 missed calls from Specks and Gladdy (25 calls each), 10 from Moogle Girl, 20 from Grease Monkey, who knows how many messages in total…

Messy, messy.

Sooner or later you’ll have to see them anyway so you vacuum your newest drink and start scrolling through the messages, knowing that if you procrastinate it will only be worse later. There are a million versions of ‘Are you okay?’ with varying degrees of concern and exclamation marks-you pay those no mind. There are a lot of physical threats on Gladio’s part (he has always been the talk with your fists kind of guy), your father’s very polite and stoic form of freaking out, Cindy’s careful prodding and Iris roundabout way of asking if you-

No.

~~No.~~

You close your eyes for a second, let the outside fade away for an instant, take a deep breath.  Open them again. Blood has flushed madly to your ears and they feel more like weights than, well, ears.

The most recent texts are from Ignis claiming that if you don’t answer your phone before midnight he’ll be forced to call the police ~~. Again.~~

No one trusts you anymore, not after that incident last year when you turned twenty. ~~And probably not after the second attempt you made on **the day**.~~

It doesn’t matter, it’s not like you would do it again. Perhaps. You might still entertain the idea now and then, in the long hours when you have nothing to do and find yourself contemplating the meaning of life and why you’re even trying, when the silences are stretched for far too long, when you see things that remind you of _that_ , but most of the days it’s bearable, it doesn’t get as bad as those first few years and really, that is enough in your book to make you think that you are fine. Mostly. Perhaps.

Your ring finger itches and you rub it with your thumb, touch the limits of the band on it, feel the plastic material that is a bit tighter than what it used to be when you were sixteen. You can’t believe that it has already been four years. The longest day of your life has lasted for four terribly exhausting years.

_It’s been a long day without you, my friend. And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again._

_When is that?,_ you wonder and bite your tongue to prevent from yelling at whoever is in charge of the music to take that goddamn song off and put something more upbeat. What on earth, this is a fucking bar not a- a – a – funeral. _A funeral. A funeral. A funeral._

A                                  funeral.

_A_

_funeral._

Your mind goes off.

A body slides on the stool next to you while you begin to hyperventilate, when you feel the heat craw to your face and the oxygen abandon your lungs through your gasping mouth and flaring nostrils like a roach on extermination day.  Your eyes open impossible wide, your shaky hands claw at the countertop looking for support or some kind of purchase but God, your chest and stomach hurt as if you’ve actually been punched right there on the zone where the two melt into one another and you can’t breathe _youcantbreatheyoucantbreatheyoucantbreathe_

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Your first kiss goes like this._

_You’re sitting underneath that stupid old willow tree you can’t help but love. Beside you is Prompto, his chubby legs folded beneath him and he continues to stare at you from under his long blonde lashes, his cheeks a slight rosy red as he stutters his way through an explanation of why you can’t marry Miss Lunafreya. You are half listening to his argument, most of you is too focused on how the color expands from his face to his neck, to his ears and elbows and knees._

_Also, why do you even care? This is too weird._

_“The point is you can’t. I mean, how is it fair? She’ll give you all A’s” the other boy whines and pulls a handful of grass from the ground. You look at his hand and think of earlier that day when you dragged him here by holding it. It was warm and kind of nice. Kind of everything you thought holding hands with the girl you liked would feel like._

_“I don’t care” you say simply, just because you can and out of sheer want to disagree._

_You reach out to Prompto’s bare knee and touch the scab he got earlier this week trying to use a skateboard. Needless to say, he was ridiculously bad at it. He yelps, scoots to the side before throwing you an annoyed glance that admittedly is, in a very Promptoish way, cute. Not that you would ever say that to his face, that you sometimes think he’s cute or how you enjoy these small moments, the two of you lost in your own world apart from everyone else. You and him, and the old willow tree._

_“You don’t even know how to kiss”_

_You raise your eyebrows at this. Look at him with alarmed blue eyes “Do you?”_

_Prompto gapes at you for a second that extends too long, blushes even more than what you thought was humanly possible. “N-o-No. But-But I’ve seen movies, y’know?” He says and your heart, that had previously turned to ice, defrosts completely. He says and the fear of inadequacy along with some other feeling you’re not able to give a name to that plagued you at the thought of Prompto having more experience than you in the love department ( ~~with who? Why? Why hasn’t he told me? He’s always with me. There is no way…)~~ disappear._

_“So have I” you mutter. Heart now racing madly, you crawl closer to your best friend pushed on by a sudden urge to prove yourself, to ~~lay a claim.~~ His eyes behind the glasses widen, he seems to unknowingly cower the more you get near, adheres his back to the bark of the tree as you settle in front of him. Your knees brush and so do the tips of your fingers, if you were brave or were any other person you’d dare seek the hand you grabbed, the one you always grab. “It can’t be that hard.”_

_On his ring finger a mood ring lays. It’s too big on him but he insists on wearing it. The result of a bet four weeks ago: Gladio forced you to ask someone to marry you and you decided, to avoid unnecessary exposure and embarrassment, to propose to Prompto. It was all in good fun, just to get a laugh- you were sure Prompto would understand the joke of the entire stupid situation. (Funny, you spent hours that day looking through your mother’s belongings in order to find that mood ring that didn’t work quite right, stayed black all the time, yet had the most emotional value out of every item that belonged to her. And when you gave it to him, even as you told him it was a bet, that it was not real, that it was a joke, even with Gladio and Ignis’s eyes on you, even as you did everything to diminish the impact of what you had to say, you felt your heartbeat quicken and your breath catch the minute you took his hand in yours and slid the ring on his finger because the look on his eyes right then was something out of the small town you lived at, bigger than the rural streets and the starry night sky of Lestallum)._

_He wears it now, under the willow tree, near the forgotten dock, trembling in shame due to never kissing anyone._

_You are eleven when you take the leap, take impulse from your hands planted on the grass and lean forward, eyes open to drink in the freckly surprised face, the red accumulated under the pale skin that refuses to tan despite the many sunny afternoons you have spent together outside. You are eleven when your lips find his and you do not break eye contact, your eyes remain open as chapped, inexperienced mouths meet in ways they haven’t done in their short existence, as he gasps and you burn and you finally close your eyes._

_The kiss is innocent, close mouthed like you have seen princes and princesses do in Disney movies. Warm and gentle, it feels almost too much like coming home after a long and tiring day._

_Your hand rests on top of the hand wearing the ring-your ring._

_“See? It wasn’t that hard” is what you tell him after you pull away, after what feels like waking up from a soft dream you wouldn’t have minded staying in forever. Prompto looks blown, his cheeks redder than a lobster; his pupils fly to your lips, as if in disbelief of what just happened._

_He doesn’t say anything, therefore you speak for him._

_“Now you can’t say you don’t know how to kiss”._

_At eleven years old, this is how your first kiss goes._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and please, do share your thoughts and opinions in the comments (TALK TO ME *reeks of desperation*) <3 I'll appreciate it very much.


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